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Have a happy Chinese New Year! by Claire Powell In the west, we celebrate New Year on the 31st December and 1st January. Resolutions are madeI will go to the gym twice a week, I will help my wife with the housework - and probably forgotten! Does that sound like you? Well, there is another chance, as Chinese New Year is celebrated on January 22nd. Why do the Chinese celebrate New Year at a different time? The traditional Chinese calendar, like many Asian calendars, follows the lunar cycle. So the New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and the celebrations end on the full moon fifteen days later. A month is a Moon and the cycle lasts about twenty nine or thirty days. In order to catch up with the solar calendar, the Chinese insert an extra month once every seven years out of a nineteen year cycle. This is the same as adding an extra day for a leap year. This is why, according to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year. The origins of the event are so ancient that they cannot be traced. However, the event is an exciting one, swathed in traditions and rituals. Preparations begin a month before the date of the Chinese New Year. People buy presents and clothes, decorate their homes and cook traditional food. Homes are cleaned from top to bottom, as any traces of dirt from the previous year could bring bad luck. Doors and windows are repainted, usually in red to ward off evil spirits, and then decorated with sayings to bring happiness, wealth and longevity. Fortune cookies are also baked, containing similar hopeful messages. | 
